I am pretty sure one of my direct reports is a psychopath. I have no idea how to manage them.

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They’ll be CEO one day so stay on their good side

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Address the results of her actions. If people aren’t getting the client access they need cause she’s blocking it, tell her “I need you to allow others reach the client, you can’t bogart all contact and that’s now how we operate” or if she’s giving colleagues the wrong info often, say “I need you to make sure you have the right information in a project before passing it on to others, there’s been some confusion lately and we need to make sure everybody’s on the same page”.

Saying “you’re acting narcissistic and gaslighting people” may be true but won’t get you any changes, esp since most people wouldn’t ever admit to acting like that. If you address the actual problems with the work her behaviour is causing, that’s something that can be changed. And if it doesn’t work, then you have the paper trail to justify letting her go.

But honestly I’d love to read a post about this on askamanager.com!

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This. I’d double check that your perceptions are fact-based, not a hunch based on your potentially limited interactions rather than their actual work interactions with their teams. Because if my old boss had written what you wrote about any of their direct reports, we all would have called them out for projecting.

@SC1 - there’s lots of things but the biggest problem is a lack of consistency.

They are deceptive: They’ll say one thing to me and something else to 3 different people, then say that I messed it up/got in their way.

They are grandiose: They take individual credit for the success of teams. E.g “I landed this client.”

They are manipulative: They can wrap a client around their finger. I found out there are specific tactics they use (touch, using their name, stance on the room). I had one other direct report accuse them of gaslighting.

They are narcissistic: Everything feels all about them. They are always the savior, or the victim. (“The client only wants to work with me” / “We should really resign this account").

It makes it hard to understand what they really want and what any genuine motivations are — since they often seem to be playing a game for the sake of it. I am completely stumped for how to manage them because typically, as their manager, my job is to care for and cultivate their career and place in the company.

But, because they feel like a bad actor, I don’t know where to start in how to curb or influence it.

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Op and Ogilvy, I had a partner like this. Actually drove me to depression and when I brought it up with them asking them to stop they used it against me to make me look unstable. Thankfully you are seeing this, not everyone does.

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I think he is more like a sociopath

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Honestly, my greatest mistake was not firing this type of person. I wanted to be a great mentor because she was so manipulative. Get rid of her. Get the receipts, by the way, because it sounds like you’re already too late and she’s won over some of the others on your team.

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Yikes. Why?

Bring in a psychologist to moon light as a " freelance strategist" and have them do an assessment.

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